Electrical Signals: AC vs. DC Coupling

Click to Enlarge

Figure 1: The DC offset of a signal is its average value. Since the blue curve (AC Only) has an average amplitude of zero, it has a zero DC offset. The red signal (AC and DC) is identical to the blue, except the red signal has a non-zero AC offset. A DC coupling would pass the red signal unchanged. An AC coupling would remove the DC offset and attenuate low-frequency components of the signal.

When an instrument offers a choice between AC and DC coupled electrical inputs, it is not unusual for the DC coupling to be the better option for a modulated input signal.

AC and DC Couplings
AC and DC couplings are interfaces between the input signal and the rest of the instrument's circuitry.

A DC coupling, which is called a direct coupling, is essentially a wire connected to the signal input. This conductive coupling transmits all of the signal's frequency components, the DC as well as the AC. The red curve in Figure 1 has a non-zero DC component.

In an AC coupling, the key feature is a capacitor placed in series with the signal input. The capacitor functions as a high-pass filter and is sometimes called a blocking capacitor. AC couplings strongly attenuate the DC and low-frequency signal components. This capacitive coupling is used to remove the DC offset from the input signal, so that only AC components are passed. The blue curve in Figure 1 has only AC frequency components.

Use the DC Coupled Input When Possible
There are many reasons to prefer the DC coupled input. Its low-frequency response is very good, it allows the DC component of the signal to be monitored along with the AC, and it does not cause signal distortion since it does not affect the frequency content of the signal.

Use of the DC coupled input is recommended unless the DC offset is large or the filtering provided by the AC coupled input is required. One problem with a large DC offset is that it can reduce the resolution of the instrument to unacceptably low levels. In extreme cases, DC offsets can cause clipping and saturation effects.

Note that using the DC coupled input does not guarantee a signal free of distortion. Distortion can occur due to other reasons, such as insufficient device bandwidth or impedance mismatch at the termination.

Click to Enlarge

Figure 3: Some modulated signals, including the blue curve plotted above, have no DC component, but they do have non-negligible low-frequency components. When this signal is high-pass filtered by an AC coupling, the resulting signal is distorted. The green curve is one example of this. 

Click to Enlarge

Figure 2: This frequency response magnitude plotted above models a capacitor-based high-pass filter. Its cutoff frequency (F_c) is 35 Hz, and it was used to filter the signal plotted in Figure 3. That signal has a repetition rate of 200 Hz.

Reasons to Use the AC Coupled Input
By rejecting the signal's DC component, AC coupling can reduce the total amplitude of the signal. This can increase the measurement resolution provided by the instrument, as well as overcome saturation and clipping problems. AC coupling provides good results when information is carried by high frequency signal components and low frequency components are not of interest. AC coupling can also be preferred when the application does not tolerate DC frequency signal components, as is the case for some telecommunications applications.

When Using the AC Coupled Input
If AC coupling is used, it is important to keep in mind that this coupling acts as a high pass filter and affects the frequency content of the signal.

As illustrated by Figure 2, this coupling does not just remove the DC offset, it can also attenuate low frequency components that may be of interest. Due to this, AC coupling can result in signal distortion. To illustrate the effects of high-pass filtering, Figure 3 plots a binary signal, with 200 Hz repetition rate, before and after it is filtered by the high-pass filter with 35 Hz cutoff frequency (F_c).

AC-coupled, digital telecommunications signals mitigate this problem by ensuring the signals are DC balanced, so that they have no DC offset. If the signals were not DC balanced, a series of ones could cause a sustained high signal level. This would introduce a non-zero DC level that would cause the signal to be affected by the capacitive filtering. The result could be bit errors due to high states being incorrectly read as low states.